95. Cures of the Blind. (Chapter 9. The Miracles of Jesus.) (The Life of Jesus Critically Examined) (Strauss, David Friedrich)

ONE of the first places among the sufferers cured by Jesus is filled (also agreeably to the nature of the climate) by the blind, of whose cure again we read not only in the general descriptions which are given by the evangelists (Matt. xv. 30 f.; Luke vii. 21), and by Jesus himself (Matt. xi. 5), of his Messianic works, but also in some detailed narratives of particular cases. We have indeed inore. of these cures than of the kind last noticed, doubtless because blindness, as a malady affecting the most delicate and complicated of organs, admitted a greater diversity of treatment. One of these cures of the blind is common to all the synoptic writers; the others (with the exception of the blind and dumb demoniac in Matthew, whom we need not here reconsider) are respectively peculiar to the first, second, and fourth evangelists.

The narrative common to all the three synoptic writers is that of a cure of blindness wrought by Jesus at Jericho, on his last journey to Jerusalem (Matt. xx. 29ff. parall); but there are important differences both as to the object of the cure, Matthew having two blind men, the two other evangelists only one; and also as to its locality, Luke making it take place on the entrance of Jesus into Jericho, Matthew and Mark on his departure out of Jericho. Moreover the touching of the eyes, by which, according to the first evangelist, Jesus effected the cure, is not mentioned by the two other narrators. of these differences the latter may be explained by the observation, that though Mark and Luke are silent as to the touching, they do not therefore deny it: the first, relative to the number cured, presents a heavier difficulty. To remove this it has been said by those who give the prior authority to Matthew, that one of the two blind men was possibly more remarkable than the other, on which account he alone as retained in the first tradition; but Matthew, as an eye-witness, afterwards supplied the second blind man. On this supposition Luke and Mark do not contradict Matthew, for they nowhere deny that another besides their single blind man was healed; neither does Matthew contradict them, for where there are two, there is also one. But when the simple narrator speaks of one individual in whom something extraordinary has happened, and even, like Mark, mentions his name, it is plain that he tacitly contradicts the statement that it happened in two individuals; to contradict it expressly there was no occasion. Let us turn then to the other side and, taking the singular number of Mark and Luke as the orie-inal one, conjecture that the informant of Matthew (the latter ^{P.487} being scarcely on this hypothesis an eye-witness) probably mistook the blind man's guide for a second blind man. Hereby a decided contradiction is admitted, while to account for it an extremely improbable cause is superfluously invented. The third difference relates to the place; Matthew and Mark have "as they departed from," Luke "as they came nigh to" Jericho. If there be any whom the words themselves fail to convince that this difference is irreconcileable, let them read the forced attempts to render these passages consistent with each other which have been made by commentators from Grotius down to Paulus.

Hence it was a better expedient which the older harmonists! adopted, and which has been approved by some modern critics. In consideration of the last-named difference, they here distinguished two events, and held that Jesus cured a blind man first on his entrance into Jericho (according to Luke), and then again on his departure from that place (according to Matthew and Luke). of the other divergency, relative to the number, these harmonists believed that they had disencumbered themselves by the supposition that Matthew connected in one event the two blind men, the one cured on entering and the other on leaving Jericho, and gave the latter position to the cure of both. But if so much weight is allowed to the statement of Matthew relative to the locality of the cure, as to make it, in conjunction with that of Mark, a reason for supposing two cures, one at each extremity of the town, I know not why equal credit should not be given to his numerical statement, and Storr appears to me to proceed moe consistently when, allowing equal weight to both differences, he supposes that Jesus on his entrance into Jericho, cured one blind man (Luke) and subsequently on his departure, two (Matthew).The claim of Matthew is thus fully vindicated, but on the other hand that of Mark is denied. For if the latter be associated with Matthew, as is here the case, for the sake of his locality, it is necessary to do violence to his numerical statement, which taken alone would rather require him to be associated with Luke; so that to avoid impeaching either of his statements, which on this system of interpretation is not admissible, his narrative must be equally detached from that of both the other evangelists. Thus we should have three distinct cures of the blind at Jericho: 1st, the cure of one blind man on the entrance of Jesus, 2nd, that of another on his departure, and 3rd, the cure of two blind men, also during the departure; in all, of four blind men. Now to separate the second and third cases is inded difficult. For it will not be maintained that Jesus can have gone out by two different gates at the same time, and it is nearly as difficult to imagine that having merely set out with the intention of leaving Jericho, he re-^{P.488} turned again into the town, and not until afterwards took his final departure. But, viewing the case more generally, it is scarcely an admissible supposition, that three incidents so entirely similar thus fell together in a group. The accumulation of cures of the blind is enough to surprise us; but the behaviour of the companions of Jesus is incomprehensible; for after having seen in the first instance, on entering Jericho, that they had acted in opposition to the designs of Jesus by rebuking the blind man for his importunity, since Jesus called the man to him, they nevertheless repeated this conduct on the second and even on the third occasion.

Storr, it is true, is not disconcerted by this repetition in at least two incidents of this kind, for he maintains that no one knows whether those who had enjoined silence on going out of Jericho were not altogether different, persons from those who had done the like on entering the town: indeed, supposing them to be the same, such a repetition of conduct wich Jesus had implicitly disapproved, however unbecoming, was not therefore impossible, since even the disciples who had been present at the first, miraculous feeding, yet asked, before the second, from where could bread be had for such a multitude? but this is merely to argue the reality of one impossibility from that of another, as we shall presently see when we enter on the consideration of the two miraculous feedings. Further, not only the conduct of the followers of Jesus, but also almost every feature of the incident must have been repeated in the most extraordinary manner. In the one case as in the other, the blind men cry, "Have mercy upon us, (or me,) son of David;" then (after silence has been enjoined on them by the spectators) Jesus commands that they should be brought to him: he next asks what they will that he should do to them; they answer, that we may receive our sight; he complies with their wish, and they gratefully follow him. That all this was so exactly repeated three times, or even twice, is an improbability amounting to an impossibility; and we must suppose, according to the hypothesis adopted by Sieffert in such cases, a legendary assimilation of different facts, or a traditionary variation of a single occurrence. If, in order to arrive at a decision, it be asked: what could more easily happen, when once the intervention of the legend is presupposed, than that one and the same history should be told first of one, then of several, first of the entrance, then of the departure? it will not be necessary to discuss the other possibility, since this is so incomparably more probable that there cannot be even a momentary hesitation in embracing it as real. But in thus reducing the number of the facts, we must not with Sieffert stop short at two, for in that case not only do the difficulties with respect to the repetition of the same incident remain, but we fall into a want of logical sequency in admitting one divergency (in the number) as unessential, for the sake of removing another (in the locality). If it be further asked, supposing only one to be correct, which of the several narratives is the true one, there is difficulty in ^{P.489} coming to a decision; for Jesus might just as well meet a blind man on entering as on leaving Jericho. The difference in the number is more likely to furnish us with a basis for a decision, and it will be in favour of Mark and Luke, who have each only one blind man; not, it is true, for the reason alleged by Schleiermacher, namely, that Mark by his mention of the blind man's name, evinces a more accurate acquaintance with the circumstances: for Mark, from his propensity to individualize out of his own imagination, ought least of all to be trusted with respect to names which are given by him alone. Our decision is founded on another circumstance.

It seems probable that Matthew was led to add a second blind man by his recollection of a previous cure of two blind men narrated by him alone (ix.27ff.). Here, likewise when Jesus is in the act of departure, from the place, namely, where he had raised the ruler's daughter, two blind men follow him, (those at Jericho are sitting by the way side,) and in a similar manner cry for mercy of the Son of David, who here also, as in the other instance, according to Matthew, immediately cures them by touching their eyes. With these similarities there are certainly no slight divergencies; nothing is here said of an injunction to the blind men to be silent, on the part of the companions of Jesus; and, while at Jericho Jesus immediately calls the blind men to him, in the earlier case, they come in the first instance to him when he is again in the house; further, while there he asks them, what they will have him to do to them? here he asks, if they believe him able to cure them? Lastly, the prohibition to tel what had happened, is peculiar to the earlier incident. The two narratives standing in this relation to each other, an assimilation of them might have taken place thus: Matthew transferred the two blind men and the touch of Jesus from the first story to the second; the form of the appeal from the blind men, from the second to the first.

The two histories, as they are given, present but few data for a natural explanation. Nevertheless the rationalist commentators have endeavoured to frame such an explanation. When Jesus in the earlier occurrence asked the blind men whether they had confidence in his power, he wished, say they, to ascertain whether their trust in him would remain firm during the operation, and whether they would punctually observe his further prescription: similar to what is described by Venturini, who makes Jesus anoint the eyes of the blind ^{P.490} men with a strong water prepared beforehand, and thus cleanse them from the irritating dust, so that in a short time their sight returned. But this natural explanation has not the slightest root in the text; for neither can the faith required from the patient imply anything else than, as in all similar cases, trust in the miraculous power of Jesus, nor can the word "he touched" signify a surgical operation, but merely that touch which appears in so many of the Gospel curative miracles, whether as a sign or a conductor of the healing power of Jesus; of further prescriptions for the completion of the cure there is absolutely nothing. It is not otherwise with the cure of the blind at Jericho, where, moreover, the two middle evangelists do not even mention the touching of the eyes.

If then, according to the meaning of the narrators, the blind instantaneously receive their sight as a consequence of the simple word or touch of Jesus, there are the same difficulties to be encountered here as in the former case of the lepers. For a disease of the eyes, however slight, as it is only engendered gradually by the reiterated action of the disturbing cause, is still less likely to disappear on a word or a touch; it requires very complicated treatment, partly surgical, partly medical, and this must be pre-eminently the case with blindness, supposing it to be of a curable kind. How should we represent to ourselves the sudden restoration of vision to a blind eye by a word or a touch? as purely miraculous and magical? That would be to give up thinking on the subject. As magnetic? There is no precedent of magnetism having influence over a disease of this nature. Or, lastly, as psychical? But blindness is something so independent of the mental life, so entirely corporeal, that th idea of its removal at all, still less of its sudden removal by means of a mental operation is not to be entertained. We must therefore acknowledge that an historical conception of these narratives is more than merely difficult to us: and we proceed to inquire whether we cannot show it to be probable that legends of this kind should arise unhistorically.

We have already quoted the passage in which, according to the first and third Gospels, Jesus in reply to the messengers of the Baptist who had to ask him whether he were the e)rxomenoj, (he that was to come,) appeals to his works. Now he here mentions in the very first place the cure of the blind, a significant proof that this particular miracle was expected from the Messiah, his words being-taken from Is. xxxv. 5, a prophecy interpreted Messianically; and in a rabbinical passage above cited, among the wonders which the Lord is to perform in the Messianic times, this is enumerated, that he oculos caecorum aperiet, id quod per Elisam fecit. Now Elisha did not cure a positive blindness, but merely on one occasion opened the eyes of his servant to a perception of the supersensual world, and on another, removed a blindness which had been inflicted on his servant. ^{P.491} These deeds of Elisha were conceived, doubtless with reference to the passage of Isaiah, as a real opening of the eyes of the blind, is proved by the above rabbinical passage, and hence cures of the blind were expected from the Messiah. Now if the Christian community, proceeding as it did from the bosom of Judaism, held Jesus to be the Messianic personage, it must manifest the tendency to ascribe to him every Messianic predicate, and therefore the one in question.

The narrative of the cure of a blind man at Bethsaida, and that of the cure of a man th-at was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, which are both peculiar to Mark, (viii.22ff.; vii.32ff.), and which we shall therefore consider together, are the especial favourites of all rationalist commentators. If, they exclaim, in the other Gospel narrative of cures, the accessory circumstances by which the facts might be explained were but preserved as they are here, we could prove historically that Jesus did not heal by his mere word, and profound investigators might discover the natural means by which his cures were effected. And in fact chiefly on the ground of these narratives, in connection with particular features in other parts of the second gospel, Mark has of late been represented, even by theologians who do not greatly favour this method of interpretation, as the patron of the naturalistic system.

In the two cures before us, it is at once a good augury for the rationalist commentators that Jesus takes both the patients apart from the multitude, for no other purpose, as they believe, than that of examining their condition medically, and ascertaining whether it were susceptible of relief. Such an examination is, according to these commentators, intimated by the evangelist himself, when he describes Jesus as putting his fingers into the ears of the deaf man, by which means he discovered that the deafness was curable, arising probably from the hardening of secretions in the ear, and hereupon, also with the finger, he removed the hindrance to hearing. Not only are the words, "he puts his fingers into his ears," interpreted as denoting a surgical operation, but the words "he touched his tongue" are supposed to imply that ^{P.492} Jesus cut the ligament of the tongue in the degree necessary to restore the pliancy which the organ had lost. In like manner, in the case of the blind man, the words, "when he had put his hands upon him" are explained as probably meaning that Jesus by pressing the eyes of the patient removed the crystalline lens which had become opaque.

A further help to this mode of interpretation is found in the circumstance that both to the tongue of the man who had an impediment in his speech, and to the eyes of the blind man, Jesus applied spittle. Saliva has in itself, particularly in the opinion of ancient physicians, a salutary effect on the eyes: as, however, it in no case acts so rapidly as instantaneously to cure blindness and a defect in the organs of speech, it is conjectured, with respect to both instances, that Jesus used the saliva to moisten some medicament, probably a caustic powder; that the blind man only heard the spitting and saw nothing of the mixture of the medicaments, and that the deaf man, in accordance with the spirit of the age, gave little heed to the natural means, or that the legend did not preserve them. In the narrative of the deaf man the cure is simply stated, but that of the blind man is yet further distinguished, by its representing the restoration of lus sight circumstantially, as gradual. After Jesus had touched he eyes of the patient as above mentioned, he asked him if he saw auyht; not at, all, observes Paulus, in the manner of a miracle-worker, who is sure of the result, but precisely in the manner of a physician, who after performing an operation endeavours to ascertain if the patient is benefited. The blind man answers that he sees, but first indistinctly, so that men seem to him like trees. Here apparently the rationalist commentator may triumphantly ask the orthodox one: if divine power for the working of cures stood at the command of Jesus, why did he not at once cure the blind man perfectly? If the disease presented an obstacle which he was not able to overcome, is it not clear from thence that his power was a finite, ordinarily human power'? Jesus once more puts his hands on the eyes of the blind man, in order to aid the effect of the first operation, and only then is the cure completed.

The complacency of the rationalist commentators in these narratives of Mark is liable to be disturbed by the frigid observation, that, here also, the circumstances which are requisite to render the natural explanation possible are not given by the evangelists themselves, but are interpolated by the said commentators. For in both cures Mark furnishes the saliva only; the efficacious powder is infused by Paulus and Venturini: it is they alone who make the introduction of the fingers into the ears first a medical examination and then an operation; and it is they alone who, contrary to the signification of language, explain the words ^{P.493} "to lay the hands upon the eyes" as implying a surgical operation on those organs. Again the circumstance that Jesus takes .jhe blind man aside, is shown by the context (vii. 36; viii. 26.) to have reference to the design of Jesus to keep the miraculous result a secret, not to the desire to be undisturbed in the application of natural means: so that all the supports of the rationalist explanation sink beneath it, and the orthodox one may confront it anew. This regards the touch and the spittle either as a condescension towards, the sufferers, who were thereby made more thoroughly sensible to whose power they owed their cure; or as a conducting medium for the spiritual power of Christ, a medium with which he might nevertheless have dispensed. That the cure was gradual, is on this system accounted for by the supposition, that Jesus intended by means of the partial cure to animate the faith of the blind man, and only when he was thus rendered worthy was he completely cured;or it is conjectured that, owing to the malady being deep-seated, a sudden cure would perhaps have been dangerous.

But by these attempts to interpret the Gospel narratives, especially in the last particular, the supernaturalistic theologians, who bring them forward, betake themselves to the same ground as the rationalists, for they are equally open to the charge of introducing into the narratives what is not in the remotest degree intimated by the text. For where, in the procedure of Jesus towards the blind man, is there a trace that his design in the first instance was to prove and to strengthen the faith of the patient? In that case, instead of the expression, He asked him if he saw aught, which relates only to his external condition, we must rather have read, as in Matt. ix. 28, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" But what shall we say to the conjecture that a sudden cure might have been injurious! The curative act of a worker of miracles is (according to Olshausen'a own opinion) not to be regarded as the merely negative one of the removal of a disease, but also as the positive one of an impartationof new life and fresh strength to the organ affected, whence the idea of danger from an instantaneous cure when wrought by miraculous agency, is not to be entertained. Thus no motive is to be discovered which could induce Jesus to put a restraint on the immediate action of his miraculous power, and it must therefore have been restricted, independently of his volition, by the force of the deep-seated malady, thins, however, is entirely opposed to the idea of the Gospels, which represent the miraculous power of Jesus as superior to death itself; it cannot therefore have been the meaning of our evangelist. If we take into consideration the peculiar characteristics of Mark as an author, it will appear that his only aim is to give dramatic effect to tnescene. Every sudden result is difficult to bring before the imagination; he who wishes to give to another a vivid idea of a rapid ^{P.494} movement, first goes through it slowly, and a quick result is perfectly conceivable only when the narrator has shown the process in detail. Consequently a writer whose object it is to assist as far as may be the imagination of his reader, will wherever it is possible exhibit the propensity to render the immediate mediate, and when recording a sudden result, still to bring forward the successive steps that led to it. So here Mark, or his informant, supposed that he was contributing greatly to the dramatic effect, when he inserted between the blindness of the man and the entire restoration of his sight, the partial cure, or the seeing men as trees, and every reader will say, from his own feeling, that this object is fully achieved. But herein, as others also have remarked, Mark is so far from manifesting an inclination to the natural conception of such miracles, that he, on the contrary, not seldom labours to aggrandize the miracle, as we have partly seen in the case of the Gadarene, and shall yet have frequent reason to remark. In a similar manner may also be explained why Mark in these narratives which are peculiar to him (and elsewhere also, as in vi. 13, where he observes that the disciples anointed the sick with, oil), mentions the application of external means and manifestations in miraculous cures. That these means, the saliva particularly, were not in the popular opinion of that age naturally efficacious causes of the cure, we may be convinced by the narrative concerning Vespasian quoted above, as also by passages of Jewish and Roman authors, according to which saliva was believed to have a magical potency, especially against diseases of the eye. Hence Olshausen perfectly reproduces the conception of that age when he explains the touch, saliva, and the like, to be conductors of the superior power resident in the worker of miracles.

We cannot indeed make this opinion ours, unless with Olshausen we proceed upon the supposition of a parallelism between the miraculous power of Jesus and he agency of animal magnetism: a supposition which, for the explanation of the miracles of Jesus, especially of the one before us, is inadequate and therefore superfluous. Hence we put this means merely to the account of the evangelist. To him also we may then doubtless refer the taking aside of the blind man, the exaggerated description of the astonishment of the people, ( They were astonished beyond measure" vii. 37,) and the strict prohibition to tell any man of the cure. This secrecy gave the affair a mysterious aspect, which, as we may gather from other passages, was pleasing to Mark. We have another trait belonging to the mysterious in the narratives of the cure of the deaf man where Mark says, And looking up to heaven he sighed, (vii. 34). What cause was there for sighing at that particular moment? Was it the misery of the human race, which must have been long known to Jesus from many melancholy examples? Or shall we evade the difficulty, by explaining the ^{P.495} expression as implying nothing further than silent prayer or audible speech? Whoever knows Mark will rather recognise the exaggerating narrator in tire circumstance that he ascribes to Jesus a deep emotion, on an occasion which could not indeed have excited it, but which, being accompanied by it, had a more mysterious appearance. But above all, there appears to me to be an air of mystery in this, that Mark gives the authoritative word with which Jesus opened the ears of the deaf man in its original Syriac form, effata, as on the resuscitation of the daughter of Jairus, this evangelist alone has the words "Talitha Kumi" (y. 41.). It is indeed said that these expressions are anything rather than magical forms; but that Mark chooses to give these authoritative words in a language foreign to his readers, to whom he is obliged at the same time to explain them, nevertheless proves that he must have attributed to this original form a special significance, which, as it appears from the context, can only, have beena magical one. This inclination to the mysterious we may now retrospectively find indicated in the application of those outward means which have no relation to the result; for the mysterious consists precisely in the presentation of infinite power through a finite medium, in the combination of the strongest effect with apparently inefficacious means.

If we have been unable to receive as historical the simple narrative given by all the synoptic writers of the cure of the blind man at Jericho, we are still less prepared to award this character to the mysterious description, given by Mark alone, of the cure of a blind man at Bethsaida, and we must regard it as a product of the legend, with more or less addition from the Gospel narrator. The same judgment must be pronounced on his narrative of the cure of the deaf man who had an impediment in his speech Kubg fioyikd-taf , for, together with the negative reasons already adduced against its historical credibility, there are not wanting positive causes for its mythical origin, since the prophecy relating to the Messianic times, "the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped, the tongue of the dumb shall sing" (Isai xxxv. 5, 6.) was in existence, and according to Matt. xi. 5, was interpreted literally.

If the narratives of Mark which we have just considered, seem at the first glance to be favourable to the natural explanation, the narrative of John, chap. ix. must, one would think, be unfavourable and destructive to it; for here the question is not concerning a blind man, whose malady having originated accidentally, might be easier to remove, but concerning a man born blind. Nevertheless, as the expositors of this class are sharp-sighted, and do not soon lose courage, they are able even here to discover much in their favour. In the first place, they find that the condition of the patient is but vaguely described, however definite the expression "blind from his birth" may seem to sound. The statements of time ^{P.496} which this expression includes, Paulus, it is true, refrains from overthrowing (though his forbearance is unwilling; and in fact incomplete): hence he has the more urgent necessity for attempting to shake the statement as to quality. Tufloj is not to signify total blindness, and as Jesus tells the man to go to the pool of Siloam, not to get himself led there, he must have still had some glimmering of eye-sight, by means of which he could himself find the way there. Still more help do the rationalist commentators find for themselves in the mode of cure adopted by Jesus, he says before-hand (v. 4) he must work the works of him that sent him while it is day, for in the night no man can work: a sufficient proof that he had not the idea of curing the blind man by a mere word, which he might just as well have uttered in the night; that, on the contrary, he intended to undertake a medical or surgical operation, for which certainly daylight was required. Further, the clay which Jesus made with his spittle, and with which he anointed the eyes of the blind man, is still more favourable to the natural exlanation than the expression "having spit," in a former case, and hence it is a fertile source of questions and conjectures. How did John know that Jesus took nothing more than spittle and dust to make his eye-salve? Was he himself present, or did he understand it merely from the narrative of the cured blind man? The latter could not, with his then weak glimmering of sight, correctly see what Jesus took: perhaps Jesus while he mixed a salve out of other ingredients accidentally spat upon the ground, and the patient fell into the error of supposing that the spittle made part of the salve. Still more: while or before Jesus put something on the eyes, did he not also remove something by extraction or friction, or otherwise effect a change in the state of these organs? This would be an essential fact which might easily be mistaken by the blind man and the spectators for "a merely accessory circumstance. Lastly, the washing in the pool of Siloam which was prescribed to the patient was prhaps continued many days - was a protracted cure by means of the bath and the words "he came seeing," do not necessarily imply that he came thus after his first bath, but that at a convenient time after the completion of his cure, he came again seeing.

But, to begin at the beginning, the meaning here given to h(mera and nuc is too shallow even for Venturini, and especially clashes with the context (v. 5), which throughout demands an interpretation of the words with reference to the speedy departure of Jesus As to the conjecture that the clay was made of medicinal ingredients of some kind or other, it is the more groundless, since it cannot be said here, as in the former case, that only so much is stated as the patient could learn by his hearing or by a slight glimmering of light, for. on this occasion, Jesus undertook the cure, not in private, but ^{P.497} in the presence of his disciples. Concerning the further supposition of previous surgical operations, by which the a-nointing and washing, alone mentioned hi the text, are reduced to mere accessories, nothing more is to be said, than that by this example we may see how completely the spirit of natural explanation despises all retraints, not scrupling to pervert the clearest words of the text in support of its arbitrary combinations. Further, when, from the circumstance that Jesus ordered the blind man to go to the pool of Siloam, it is inferred that he must have had a share of light, we may remark, in opposition to this, that Jesus merely told the patient where he was to go; whether alone or with a guide, he left to his own discretion. Lastly, when the closely connected words "he went his way, therefore, and washed and came seeing" (v. 7; comp. v. 11) are stretched out into a process of cure lasting several weeks, it is just as if the words, "veni, vidi, vici" were translated thus: After my arrival I reconnoitred for several days, fought battles at suitable intervals, and finally remained conqueror.

Thus here also the natural explanation will not serve us, and we have still before us the narrative of a man born blind, miraculously cured by Jesus. That the doubts already expressed as to the reality of the cures of the blind, apply with increased force to the case of a man born blind, is self-evident. And they are aided in this instance by certain special critical reasons. Not one of the three first evangelists mentions this cure. Now, if in the formation of the apostolic tradition, and in the selection which it made from among the miracles of Jesus, any kind of reason was exercised, it must have taken the shape of the two following rules: first, to choose the greater miracles before those apparently less important; and secondly, those with which edifying discourses were connected, before those which were not thus distinguished. In the first respect, it is plain that the cure of a man blind from his birth, as the incomparably more difficult miracle, was by all means to be chosen rather than that of a manin whom blindness had supervened, and it is not to be conceived why, if Jesus really gave sight to a man born blind, nothing of this should have entered into the Gospel tradition, and from thence into the synoptic Gospels. It is true that with this consideration of the magnitude of the miracles, a regard to the edifying nature of the discourses connected with them might not seldom come into collision, so that a less striking, but from the conversations which it caused, a more instructive miracle, might be preferred to one more striking, but presenting loss of the latter kind of interest. But the cure of the blind man in John is accompanied by very remarkable conversations, first, of Jesus with the disciples, then, of tne cured man with the magistrates, and lastly of Jesus with the blind man, admirably ^{P.498} suited to the purpose of the three first evangelists. These writers therefore, could not have failed to introduce the cure of the man born blind into their histories, instead of their less remarkable and less edifying cures of the blind, if the former had made a part of the Gospel tradition from which they drew. It might possibly have remained unknown to the general Christian tradition, if it had taken place at a time and under circumstances which did not favour its promulgation, if it had been effected in a remote corner of the country, without further witnesses. But Jesus performed this miracle in Jerusalem, in the circle of his disciples; it made a great sensation in the city, and was highly offensive to the magistracy, hence the affair must have been known if it had really occurred; and as we do not find it in the common Gospel tradition, the suspicion arises that it perhaps never did occur.

But it will be said, the writer who attests it is the apostle John. This, however, is too improbable, not only on account of the incredible nature of the contents of the narrative, which could thus hardly have proceeded from an eye-witness, but also from another reason. The narrator interprets the name of the pool, Siloam, by the Greek a)pestelmenoj (v. 7); a false explanation, for one who is sent is called Shaluah, whereas Shiloah according to the most probable interpretation signifies a waterfall. The evangelist, however, chose the above interpretation, because he sought for some significant relation between the name of the pool, and the sending there of the blind man, and thus seems to have imagined that the pool had by a special providence received the name of Sent, because at a future time the Messiah, as a manifestation of his glory, was to send there a blind man. Now, we grant that an apostle might give a grammatically incorrect explanation, in so far as he is not held to be inspied, and that even a native of Palestine might mistake the etymology of Hebrew words, as the Old Testament itself shows; nevertheless, such a play upon words looks more like the laboured attempt of a writer remote from the event, than of an eyewitness. The eye-witness would have had enough of important matters in the miracle which he had beheld, and the conversation to which he had listened; only a remote narrator could fall into the triviality of trying to extort a significant meaning from the smallest accessory circumstance. Thol ck and L cke are highly revolted by this allegory, which, as the latter expresses himself, approaches to absolute folly, hence they are unwilling to admit that it proceeded from John, and regard it as a gloss. As, however, all critical authorities, except one of minor importance, present this particular, such a position is sheer arbitrariness, and the only choice left us is either, with Olshausen, to edify ourselves by this interpretation as an apostolic one, or, with the author of the Memorabilia, to number ^{P.499} it among the indications that the fourth gospel had not an apostolic origin.

The reasons which might prevent the author of the fourth gospel, or the tradition from which he drew, from resting contended with the cures of the blind narrated by the synoptic writers, and thus induce the one or the other to frame the story before us, are already pointed out by the foregoing remarks. The observation has been already made by others, that the fourth evangelist has fewer miracles than the synoptic writers, but that this deficiency in number is compensated by a superiority in magnitude. Thus while the other evangelists have simple paralytics cured by Jesus, the fourth gospel has one who had been lame thirty-eight years; while, in the former, Jesus resuscitates persons who had just expired, in the latter, he calls back to life one who had lain in the grave four days, in whom therefore it might be presumed that decomposition had begun; and so here, instead of a cure of simple blindness, we have that of a man born blind, a heightening of the miracle altogether suited to the apologetic and dogmatic tendency of this gospel. In what way the author, or the particular tradition which he followed, might be led to depict the various details of the narrative, is easily seen. The act of spitting was common in magical cures of the eyes; clay was a ready substitute for an eye-salve, and elsewhere occurs in magical proceedings the command to wash in the pool of Siloam may have been an imitation of Elisha's order, that the leper Naaman should bathe seven times in the river Jordan. The conversations connected with the cure partly proceed from the tendency of the Gospel of John already remarked by Storr, namely, to attest and to render as authentic as possible both the cure of the man, and the fact of his having been born blind, from which the repeated examination of the cured man, and even of his parents; partly they turn upon the symbolical meaning of the expressions, blind and seeing, day and night, a meaning which it is true is not foreign to the synoptic writers, but which specifically belongs to the circle of images in favour with John.